I think we've all worked in offices like this. What! You mean it's just me? The story is by Ryan Dull, who makes his debut on the Grievous Angel.

His work has previously appeared in Psychopomp Magazine and on the Pseudopod podcast, and is upcoming in Third Flatiron's Cat's Breakfast anthology. He adds "Ryan Dull is still hiding out in Southern California. Please let him know when the coast is clear. You can find him on Twitter at @RyanSoDull"​

Armaggemnonby Ryan Dull

Armaggemnon demands sacrifice. We try to ignore him. He demands sacrifice in a booming voice, much too deep for his soccer ball body. He demands sacrifice from everyone he sees, rolling across the ceiling to shout down into one cubicle after another, leaving a rift of popped-out ceiling tiles in his wake. We can hear him coming from around the corner. He is oblong, and he thumps whenever he rolls onto his cheek. He mostly bothers the people near Steve, since he’s bound to Steve and he can’t get far. But when Steve walks to the bathroom or the copier, Armaggemnon barrels along with him, tearing into workspaces and commanding us to throw precious things into his ravenous maw.

Steve is incredibly apologetic about the whole situation. He grimaces and tells us that if he’d known this kind of thing still happened, he would have spent his vacation at the beach and not spelunking in long-sealed jungle caves. Every day, he stays late to fix the ceiling. He’s a diligent guy, works a lot of Saturdays. He knows he’s lucky to have this job, given his condition.

There’s been some back and forth with the insurance people, we’re told. Steve holds that it’s a parasite, plain and simple, and that he’s entitled to whatever kind of solution medical science can devise. The insurance people think that it’s more like an old-world blood curse, and that Steve should consider more financially prudent options, like religion. Steve hunches in his ergonomic chair, listening to hold music in one ear and antediluvian cries for satisfaction in the other. Whenever the screams peak, the mysterious tattoos on Steve’s wrists glow through his cuffs. Steve’s been wearing a lot of dark shirts lately, but nothing can hide the eldritch loops of Armaggemnon’s brand. He says he’s tempted to try feeding Armaggemnon, just to see if it might shut him up. It doesn’t seem likely. Carol once gave him a jellybean, and it only made him bigger and louder.

We don’t want to let Steve go. That would be difficult, ethically speaking. We can’t know if Steve maybe shattered some ancient urn or if Armaggemnon really latched onto him for no reason. We can’t cast blame. This is a family business. We’re a family. What happened to Steve could have happened to any one of us (although we don’t like jungle caves – we like the beach). We assume this floating, yelling, unholy, beet-red cranium must be taking some kind of toll on Steve’s home life. We are very conscious of how much stress he must be enduring. The last thing we want is to exacerbate it. But it’s become a productivity issue. The thing is so fucking loud.

We’ve rented a space uptown, a satellite office, a run-down two-room with a key to a shared bathroom. We’ve draped the place in holy symbols, had it sanctified by a whole mess of holy people. It’s taken a lot of time, and no small expense. We’ve kept it all very hush hush. Steve doesn’t suspect a thing.

​We’re showing him tomorrow, taking him uptown under the pretense of a client meeting. He’s going to be thrilled. We haven’t taken him on a client meeting since his vacation. We’re going to buzz him into the new building, maybe even have a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Steve’s brand new, personal, private office. We’ll say a few words. Steve will be profoundly grateful. And then the rest of us will drive back to work and that screaming head can starve for all we care.

Quote, Unquote

"Thank goodness for guys like you, who devote so much time to these things" ...Elizabeth Crocket

"Thank you for your kind words and making my weekend uplifting and bright. I'm excited to be published alongside other wonderful visual and textual works in Grievous Angel" ...D.A. Xiaolin Spires

"Love your magazine. Keep up the good work! I've read bits and pieces of so many magazines that are so boring, I'm donating to yours because everything you publish is fascinating" ...Laura Beasley

"I want to be a part of any project named after Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris" ...poet, writer & journalist Andrew Darlington

"I really love your site and the wonderful eerie fiction you publish. Unlike a lot of work, most of what I read on your site stays with me - like a flavor or a scent, slightly tinting the world" ...performer, writer, biologist and painter E.E. King​

Tip Jar

Feel free to drop a few PayPal coins in our Tip Jar to help us meet some of our running costs. Chocolate, tea, flasks of wine, books of verse, the usual.

EU GDPR Compliance: By completing the WEIRD Newsletter form you are opting-in to our emailing list. The only data we store is your email address, which is kept securely in a digital format. We will not share, sell or disclose your contact details to anyone... ever! You can also unsubscribe at any time by emailing urbanfantasist@icloud.com